Yellow Earth

1939. Gu Qing, a soldier from the communist army, is sent to the poor villages of northern Shaanxi. His task is to collect folk songs whose words will be changed into revolutionary songs. He stays with a family. Their daughter Cuiqiao is fourteen and already promised; her father has taken the bride price. The soldier tells her another life is possible, and then he leaves. It is Chen Kaige's first film. Zhang Yimou is the cinematographer, and began directing his own films a few years later. The film is taken as the start of what is called the Fifth Generation in Chinese cinema. This crew were the first graduates of the Beijing Film Academy after it reopened following the Cultural Revolution, and they broke with the propaganda language of the generation before them. The visual method is distinctive. Empty earth and sky fill most of the frame and the people sit small along the bottom. It is not a stylistic choice but the idea of the film itself: the landscape is larger than the person, and so is tradition. The politics are left unresolved. The soldier means well and can change nothing, and that position, showing how slowly the revolution moved in the countryside, caused discomfort in China at the time. The waist drum sequence and the rain prayer near the end are the most discussed passages. Who it is for: viewers interested in the transformation of Chinese cinema in the eighties and in films built on image rather than plot. Who it is not for: very little happens, the dialogue is sparse, and the film answers none of its own questions.